Bart Ragon

Purpose of Review: The goal of this narrative review is to introduce and apply Hswen’s AI Checklist (AI-Y) for Population Ethics , a structured ethical framework created to evaluate the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in public health. The review addresses key questions: How can AI be ethically assessed across global healthcare contexts and what principles are needed to ensure contextually appropriate AI use in population health. Recent Findings: Recent research highlights a significant disconnect between AI development and ethical implementation, especially in low-resource settings. Studies reveal issues such as homogeneity in the training data, and limited accessibility. Through six global case studies—spanning dementia care in Sweden, environmental forecasting in Europe, suicide prevention in Native American communities, schizophrenia care in India and the U.S., and cervical cancer and tuberculosis diagnosis in Low- and Middle-Income Countries—researchers demonstrate AI’s promise in enhancing preparedness diagnosis, screening, and care delivery while also underscoring ethical gaps in accountability, and governance. Summary: Our examination using the AI-Y Checklist found that ethical blind spots are widespread in the development and deployment of AI tools for population health—particularly in areas of model generalizability, accountability, and transparency of AI decision-making. Although AI demonstrates strong potential to enhance disease detection, resource allocation, and preventive care across diverse global settings, most systems evaluated in our six case studies did not meet key ethical criteria such as access, and localized validation and development. The major takeaway is that technical excellence alone is insufficient; ethical alignment is critical to the responsible implementation of AI in public health. The AI-Y Checklist provides a scalable framework to identify risks, guide ethical decision-making, and foster global accountability. For future research, this framework enables standardized evaluation of AI systems, encourages community co-design practices, and supports the creation of policy and governance structures that ensure AI technologies advance health ethics.

Academic health sciences libraries (“libraries”) offer services that span the entire research lifecycle, positioning them as natural partners in advancing clinical and translational science. Many libraries enjoy active and productive collaborations with Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program hubs and other translational initiatives like the IDeA Clinical & Translational Research Network. This article explores areas of potential partnership between libraries and Translational Science Hubs (TSH), highlighting areas where libraries can support the CTSA Program’s five functional areas outlined in the Notice of Funding Opportunity. It serves as a primer for TSH and libraries to explore potential collaborations, demonstrating how libraries can connect researchers to services and resources that support the information needs of TSH.

Objective: To understand the experience of academic health sciences libraries during the pandemic using a phenomenological approach. Methods: This study used a multisite, mixed-method approach to capture the direct experience of academic health sciences libraries as they evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phase one of the study involved administering a qualitative survey to capture to capture current evolutions of programs and services. The survey for phases two (August 2020) and three (February 2021) contained eight questions asking participants to share updates on their evolution and experiences. Results: Qualitative data were analyzed using open coding techniques to ensure emergent themes were allowed to surface. Additional post-hoc sentiment analysis ascertained the frequency of positive and negative words in each data set. Of the 193 possible AAHSL libraries, 45 (23.3%) responded to the April 2020 survey, 26 to the August 2020 survey, and 16 to the February 2021 survey. Libraries represented 23 states and the District of Columbia. The majority of libraries closed in March 2020. The ease of transferring library services to a remote environment varied by type of service. For the quantitative analysis, ten distinct areas were analyzed using text coded as “Staff” as a lens for understanding the connection between codes. Conclusion: Innovations by libraries during the early stages of the pandemic are having a long-term impact on library culture and the delivery of services. Even as libraries returned to in-person services, elements of telecommuting,

COVID-19 reinforced the need for effective leadership and administration within Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program hubs in response to a public health crisis. The speed, scale, and persistent evolution of the pandemic forced CTSA hubs to act quickly and remain nimble. The switch to virtual environments paired with supporting program operations, while ensuring the safety and well-being of their team, highlight the critical support role provided by leadership and administration. The pandemic also illustrated the value of emergency planning in supporting organizations’ ability to quickly pivot and adapt. Lessons learned from the pandemic and from other cases of adaptive capacity and preparedness can aid program hubs in promoting and sustaining the overall capabilities of their organizations to prepare for future events.

As the USA and the rest of the world raced to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, years of investments from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences allowed for informatics services and resources at CTSA hubs to play a significant role in addressing the crisis. CTSA hubs partnered with local and regional partners to collect data on the pandemic, provide access to relevant patient data, and produce data dashboards to support decision-making. Coordinated efforts, like the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), helped to aggregate and harmonize clinical data nationwide. Even with significant informatics investments, some CTSA hubs felt unprepared in their ability to respond to the fast-moving public health crisis. Many hubs were forced to quickly evolve to meet local needs. Informatics teams expanded critical support at their institutions which included an engagement platform for clinical research, COVID-19 awareness and education activities in the community, and COVID-19 data dashboards. Continued investments in informatics resources will aid in ensuring that tools, resources, practices, and policies are aligned to meet local and national public health needs.

The ability of research networks and individual institutions to effectively and efficiently prepare, respond, and adapt to emergent challenges is essential for the biomedical research enterprise. At the beginning of 2021, a special Working Group was formed by individuals in the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) consortium and approved by the CTSA Steering Committee to explore “Adaptive Capacity and Preparedness (AC&P) of CTSA Hubs.” The AC&P Working Group took a pragmatic Environmental Scan (E-Scan) approach of utilizing the diverse data that had been collected through existing mechanisms. The Local Adaptive Capacity framework was adapted to illustrate the interconnectedness of CTSA programs and services, while exposing how the demands of the pandemic forced them to quickly pivot and adapt. This paper presents a synopsis of the themes and lessons learned that emerged from individual sections of the E-Scan. Lessons learned from this study may improve our understanding of adaptive capacity and preparedness at different levels, as well as help strengthen the core service models, strategies, and foster innovation in clinical and translational science research.

Objectives: This study sought to understand the needs of biomedical researchers related to the research lifecycle and the present state of library support for biomedical research.Methods: Qualitative interview data were collected from biomedical researchers who were asked to describe their research activities from identifying a problem to measuring the impact of their findings. Health sciences library leaders were surveyed about the services that they currently provide or plan to provide in supporting biomedical research.Results: Library services were strongest at the beginning and end of the research lifecycle but were weaker in the conducting phase of the research. Co-occurrence of codes from the qualitative data suggests that library services are on the fringe of rather than integrated into the research lifecycle.Discussion: Findings from this study suggest that tradition-based service models of health sciences libraries are insufficient to meet the needs of biomedical researchers. Investments by libraries in services that integrate with the conducting phase of research are needed for libraries to remain relevant in their support of the research lifecycle.

SUMMARY. With the integration of iPods and other mobile devices, podcasting has emerged as a potentially disruptive technology. Libraries are striving to discern what is appropriate when it comes to the production or distribution of podcasts. Many libraries are organizing podcast resources, some are producing their own content, and others are enabling their users to produce their own. These complex issues lead to difficult questions such as should this new medium be cataloged and how. doi: 10.1300/J115v26S01_05 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: < http://www.HaworthPress.com > © 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Librarian involvement in the Open Access (OA) movement has traditionally focused on access to scholarly publications. Recent actions by the White House have focused attention on access on the data produced from federally sponsored research. Questions have emerged concerning access to the output of federally sponsored research and whether it is a public or private good. Understanding the political battle over access to federally funded research is closely tied to the ownership of the peer review process in higher education and associated revenue streams, and as a result, interest groups seeking to influence government regulation have politicized the issues. As a major funder of research in higher education, policies from the federal government are likely to drive change in research practices at higher education institutions and impact library services. The political economy of federally sponsored research data will shape research enterprises in higher education inspire a number of new services distributed throughout the research life cycle.